Copyright 2004, StarGen Server Blade Summit: Session 105 Interfaces Panel Advanced Switching Interface (ASI) Legacy Plus David Mayhew StarGen

Copyright 2004, StarGen If you cannot do the old stuff you will not be allowed to do the new stuff. or Legacy support is not everything: On a list of the 10 most important interface characteristics, other capabilities are prominently featured in the second half of the list. Standards based solutions are essential.

Copyright 2004, StarGen Which Legacy  Load/Store – PCI ?  Local intra-computer communication interface.  Packets – Ethernet ?  Inter-computer interface  Socket compatibility equally important  Packets – SCSI / SAS / Fibre Channel ?  Storage interface  Data Streams – TDM ?  Voice/video interfaces ASI provides transparent legacy support for all four, plus any number of additional legacy protocols.

Copyright 2004, StarGen Future (Plus) Interface Goals  High Availability  Scalability  More than dozens of endpoints  Convergence  Merging of computational and communications equipment.  Decomposition  Separation of CPUs from I/O devices  One-to-one CPU to I/O device mapping  One-to-many CPU to I/O device mapping  Sharing/Virtualization  Many-to-one CPU to I/O device mapping  Many-to-one virtual/system image to I/O device mapping ASI supports for all five future system requirements.

Copyright 2004, StarGen A quick look at shared I/O  Load / store (PCI) register compatible shared I/O model.  Packet stream shared I/O model.  There are other models, but not that can be discussed in the 90 seconds remaining in this presentation.

Copyright 2004, StarGen Shared I/O Shared Register Interface ASI Fabric Reg Set 3 Fibre Channel Reg Set 0 Reg Set 2 Reg Set 1

Copyright 2004, StarGen Shared I/O Shared Gateway ASI Fabric 10Gb Ethernet Channel ASI/Ethernet Enet XAUI Ethernet EnetASIEnetASI

Copyright 2004, StarGen ASI supports Legacy Plus  Keep your existing software base.  Add new capabilities using legacy transparent or advanced interface features.  Do the above in a fully standards based interface.  Most ASI specifications are now at a 1.1 revision level